3D Printer
During Covid shutdown, we received a small business Grant, we chose to invest this in a couple of 3D printers. We were already self sufficient for designing components, now we could prototype and even manufacture them too.
Had this facility been available to us previously, we may have been able to complete the Blackwood requirements. We chose a Prusa Mk4 for small intricate components and a Modix 120X for printing the major pieces.
Setting up the printers
The decision was taken to look at crowdfunding.
We have a unique product, with fabulous design and a solid body of research and development. We understood there is a wealth of people who would like to get involved, and this is our way of making this happen.
Without funding or investment, we can’t deliver this revolutionary product, which has the potential to transform the lives of wheelchair and limited mobility users around the world. The Lead Prototype will remain an example of unfulfilled opportunity and we don’t want that, Joe at least, deserves better!
Your support and funding will allow us to:
Hire designers and Engineers so they can bring their knowledge and expertise to help develop the next stage of this project. ..
Test pieces
The use of scale and sectional models allowed us to gain experience and learning about different filaments, their properties and individual requirements.
This experimentation was helpful for understanding bed temperatures, printing alignments, profiles, draught angles and wall fill, designing for print necessitates a different approach from usual CAD.
Lessons
An essential part of the learning process was us making mistakes, as we found the limits, boundaries and operating conditions that were sub-optimal.
Pieces failed through combinations of poor bed temp control, incorrect speed of printing, inconsistent print head temp, lack of adhesion to the bed.
Each new design printed on the Modix would take 6 to 8 attempts to refine.
Once the print specific parameters are established, the subsequent printing process becomes repeatable.
How your pledge could impact our research
People take their independence very seriously. Brompton Washscape’s washing machine gives users such as Joe, the ability to choose when and how to carry out personal care tasks without relying on a carer or their family or friends. Having clean and smart clothes that fit is a great way of maintaining independence and identity.
Our goal was to be able to custom manufacture large complex pieces, that would otherwise be injection moulded.
Typically injection moulding tooling is very expensive, and the cost is amortised across a large quantity of parts, we’re not there yet and 3D printing better suits our current circumstances.
3D printing also allows components to be manufactured that wouldn’t be possible with injection moulding.
Features like internal water passages are facilitated with 3D printing, eliminating joints, leak paths and multiple components, as shown in our prototype upper rail body.
Prior to 3D printing, these were an assembly of many costly parts, all requiring their own precise tolerances.
In the current prototype, the component count, including spray nozzles is around 70.
With 3D printing, the nozzles can be incorporated into the design and printed in one single piece.
These nozzles are small, fiddly and time consuming to install, printing integrated nozzles improves manufacturability.
Design to finished piece
Making the face
The single point of failure for the Blackwood model was the door handle, that highlighted our lack of capability to make rapid changes to components.
After a couple months of learning, designing, test printing and modification, first on scale and sectional models and then on full scale pieces, the Modix printer now allows us to print the door as a single component.
Now we’re able to reproduce the unique face, we now want to capitalise on that capability, to produce a small run of complete versions for testing with users.
